There's More to Every Story
More people that is.
We like simple narratives. Clear heroes. Little grey area. We tend to label politicians as good or bad actors, which varies based on what media sources we pay the most attention to.
But life - and policy - are a lot less neat and orderly. And the real stories happen behind the scenes through endless conversations and negotiations that involve the people we don’t often think about. Many of us barely notice them in the policy process, let alone understand what they do. Our “Unelected Representatives.” Staffers.
By the time a bill becomes national news, there have typically been countless rounds of crafting and fine tuning its origin story. In the end, we’re told a mutually agreed upon narrative carried forward in a game of telephone by reporters and the public.
Media reports about legislation often include a folksy, heart-warming approximation of events that may, or may not, have ever taken place.
We read about two congressman who mapped out bipartisan energy legislation over iced tea on a hot summer day.
Or we hear about a few senators who screened a nature documentary that sparked a lively discussion leading to a new environmental bill.
Maybe we see an article describing how lawmakers hashed out their new framework for education policy while out jogging together one afternoon .
Occasionally, such moments of impromptu inspiration really do happen. But most of the time, there’s just so much more involved in the process.
And sure, at the end of the day, the legislators at the center of a story probably did agree upon a proposal. But only after their teams spent weeks or longer negotiating behind the scenes, drafting language, defining priorities, and making deals.
Ultimately, we’re told flattering anecdotes about how the people elected to office came to write the bill or introduce the plan. There’s little or no mention of the army of staffers bustling behind the scenes who actively shaped that policy.
And often, it’s also the same smart and creative team that came up with the memorable, yet not-so-accurate origin story about what inspired the bill in the first place.
As a non DC resident and layman citizen, it can be hard enough to keep the 535 (or 538?) members of Congress straight, let alone also following the inputs and machinations of their senior staffers. But I agree that when staffers are the real actors behind the scenes, it is incumbent upon the legislators involved to also acknowledge their staff's contributions, possibly even describing how and when a particular staffer proved persuasive enough to override a legislator's original resistance to a new or old idea. [Wasn't it Reagan who asserted that there was no limit to what you could accomplish a long as you weren't worried about who might end up claiming credit?]
This is really part of the level of enhanced transparency that we should see in both the legislative and executive branches. And especially if the lobbyists are actually visiting with senior (or junior) staffers, then their respective involvement, the topics discussed, and the potential outcomes/ acceptances, etc. should be documented "somehow". Maybe something similar to when the FBI interviews someone and then the agent writes up a Form 302? [My quick search on this says "... current guidelines prevent the agency from recording interviews with electronic devices." I did not realize such recordings were specifically excluded practice in FBI interviews, and probably that practice should be changed, with recordings augmenting the follow-on written 302 form (or vice versa).]
Some years ago I read in some book on government practices the recommendation that to improve the accountability of the legislature for the rules and regulations whose creation and management is currently delegated to the executive agencies, that a larger fraction of the executive branch staff (and their respective expertise) should be brought over under control of the legislative branch. This would (supposedly) force the Congress and its law making function to be more precise in describing the laws it creates, and hopefully reduce the opportunity for interpretive overreach in the enforcement agencies. But also this would more closely align the intent of the Constitution's Article I vs. Article II roles.
Welcome your thoughts on this idea.